Local prep squads look to improve in Week 2

Megan Crotty

Thursday

Aug 23, 2018 at 9:55 PMAug 23, 2018 at 9:56 PM

Week 1 of the high school football season means coaches and players get to see if all of the hard work in the preseason paid off. Week 2 gives them a chance to fix what broke last week.In Randolph County action tonight, Asheboro (0-1) travels to Grimsley (0-1), Randleman (1-0) hosts Southwestern Randolph (0-1), Eastern Randolph (1-0) travels to Rockingham County (0-1), Providence Grove (1-0) welcomes Western Harnett (0-1), Trinity (1-0) hosts Bishop McGuinness (0-1) and Wheatmore (1-0) hosts West Davidson (0-1). All the games kick off at 7:30 p.m.The Blue Comets are coming off a disappointing 42-39 loss to the Tigers in which AHS was up by 26 points midway through the third quarter.“We don’t know if they’ve learned it yet, but what they should have learned is we’ve got to be consistent,” Blue Comets coach Kevin Gillespie said. “You can’t play for 2 ½ quarters and then start making mistakes against a good team. We’ve got to be consistent in everything we do. We should have learned that when we do the fundamentals, we can be pretty good.”AHS faces a Grimsley squad that fell to Northern Guilford 20-15 last week.“I know they’ll be well-coached and they’ll be athletic,” said Gillespie, whose team lost to GHS by three points last year.The only battle between two local squads tonight pits the Tigers against the Cougars. It was a mixed bag for the teams in Week 1 as SWR fell to ER 42-13 and RHS had its comeback victory against AHS.“Our kids never really acted like they were down,” said Tigers coach Shane Handy, whose team beat SWR 64-22 last year. “We had some turnovers, but things just started clicking and we got some breaks here and there.“When you win something like that, people want to relax and chill out, but we’ve been on them hard. The kids have been working hard and it’s been a good week.”When Handy looks across the field tonight, he said he’s going to see some of the biggest kids his team will face this season.“They’re huge — they’re all large,” he said. “They really played hard against ER. The score wasn’t indicative of how hard both teams played. They’re coached well. It should be a good challenge.”Cougars coach Seth Baxter said his team left too many opportunities out on the field last week — especially in the first half.“We could have easily been up three scores,” he said. “We didn’t finish the job at times. In the second half, we became fatigued — with our legs and our minds. We didn’t play smart football at times. We can’t give up big plays and we had too many penalties. We’re never going to be the fastest team on the field.“But, we met with the seniors Monday and challenged them — every play is important on the field and they’re the leaders.”One of SWR’s biggest challenges? Stopping RHS running back Jaquan Snipes.“You’d like to have him on your fantasy football team because he’s a good a running back as there is around and he catches the ball so well,” Baxter said. “We’ve got to know where he is at all times. In the second half last week, their passing game really picked up. Timmy York did a great job throwing the ball and they have some kids on the perimeter who can catch. Defensively, they’re as big up front as they’ve been since I’ve coached against Shane. They have speed all over the field.“High school teams make the most improvement Week 1 to Week 2. We’ve got to fix our mistakes and keep getting better.”With a win under their belts, the Wildcats travel to face an RC team that was shut out by Reidsville last week.“We’ve had a good week of practice,” ER coach Burton Cates said. “We’re blessed right now because, so far, we’ve dodged the injury bug.“Last week, our kids played like they cared and with great effort. That’s something everybody looks for early. We made a lot of mistakes, but a lot of them were opening-game mistakes. We had some penalties, but they were effort penalties.”The Wildcats play a team that topped them 50-27 last season — but, it’s a new year.“They’re a really big football team,” Cates said. “They have an outstanding running back. We’ve got another tough week. We’re overmatched size-wise quite a bit. That will be a big key to the game.”The Patriots edged East Davidson 17-15 last week and take on a WH squad that put up a goose egg on offense in Week 1.“We’ve had a great week of practice — of course, it’s always a lot easier coming off a win,” said PG coach Calvin Brown, whose team beat WH 21-9 last season. “There are always things we could do better. We didn’t execute well on a lot of things, but we won the turnover battle 4-0.“Western Harnett is very athletic and fast. It’ll be our responsibility not to give up big plays on the defensive side on offense.”With starting quarterback Andrew Poteat playing injured last week and still banged up, Brown said the senior will be a game-time decision.Bulldogs coach Brett Andrews is still grinning this week about a zero — the one his defense put up last week in a 53-0 win over South Davidson.“Our defense was spectacular,” he said. “They were ready for everything. … We had a bit of a setback (Wednesday), but we got some questions answered and the kids are ready to go.”BM fell to North Wilkes last week 49-21 and comes to THS to face a team that beat them 34-2 last year.“Based on film, they seem like a good group of kids,” Andrews said. “They play hard and they do a pretty good job offensively. There’s no huge playbook, but they do it well. Our defense needs to try and bring pressure. We really hammered that this week.”The Warriors rolled over West Davidson last week 61-7 and hope to keep things going downhill this week.“It’s been an interesting week, mostly due to the weather,” WHS coach Philip Yarbrough said. “We haven’t gotten the quality of work in like we’d like to.“Our kids had a little bit of a chip on their shoulder last week. We’re not stupid — we hear people across the county that chirp and talk about us being lucky, things being a fluke. Our kids came out with that on their minds and they wanted to send a message. … It was really good to see that offense finally click. They’ve worked really hard on that the last two years.”WHS beat ED 7-2 last season, but Yarbrough’s team knows not to take anyone lightly.“They seem to have graduated a good number of players, but Coach (Vance) Hanner has a reputation for having great teams,” Yarbrough said. “We’re expecting them to execute well and play hard.”

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